Sling
by AtobeLover
Summary: His arm broke, and with it his dreams. Maybe everything will return after Atobe comes into his life... or not. Does love trump sport?


Title: Sling

By: AtobeLover

Summary: His arm broke, and with it his dreams. Maybe everything will return after Atobe comes into his life... or not. Does love trump sport?

Rated: T

Disclaimer: I wish I owned Prince Of Tennis, but I don't. It hurts. I want to read the New PoT manga but I'm not getting around to it. And all the musicals and everything. But I'm downloading a lot of movies nowadays. Kokuhaku is disturbing, but I loved it. You psychological thriller, you.

Review if you liked it. I hope I tore your hearts out. It's been a while since I wrote something, and I hope it's to the liking of anyone who reads it. I've been through hell lately, and it's not worth the journey. Seriously. In the month or two or five (I don't remember) that I've been away, I kept getting emails about me getting favorited or my stories getting reviews or follows. It's nice. Like this little nugget of gold that's whispering, "Someone still remembers you."

I really love Royal. I could talk on about how they meld together so perfectly but I'm going to shut up so that you can get on with the story. Really, reviews are what makes my day.

* * *

The world flashes past his eyes, life moving on in waves and crashes and tumultuous roars, and he just lies there on his bed and stares.

Ryoma Echizen. The tennis prodigy in ruins.

His arm in a sling hangs uselessly beside him. Broken. Healing, but marred forever. He can understand Tezuka's horror now. His agony when his fingers curl around a racket and he realizes his gift has lessened. No longer perfect. Ryoma doesn't even cry about it. Tezuka didn't.

Ryoma has stopped thinking. Just staring at individual mites of dust in the air until they dance around each other and vanish into the sunlight streaming into the room.

His life is gone. No more tennis. No more future Grand Slam winner.

He needs to piss. He gets up slowly, and walks into the bathroom.

* * *

"You have a visitor, brat," Nanjiro says, knocking on the door. There isn't any reply from within. He turns to the boy beside him, standing mutely, and says, "Go in. It's fine. Are you a close friend of his?"

"No," Keigo Atobe replies. "But I respect his talent."

Nanjiro walks away and lets Atobe open the door on his own and walk in. He knows the trauma his son is undergoing. He knows the pain. He can't do anything about it. He's never broken anything, except maybe his wife's heart.

* * *

"Get out."

"Echizen-kun—"

"Get the fuck out," Ryoma hisses jaggedly, focusing on something for the first time in hours. "I don't want anyone to be here. Leave."

Atobe sits down on the bed on which Ryoma is lying. Ryoma stares at him. "Are you deaf?"

"No." Atobe offers him some Ponta, which he bought on the way to his house. Ryoma sits up, looks down at the can and takes it. He hasn't held anything for many days, and his hand can't hold it tightly enough fingers trembling, about to drop it. Atobe takes it from him, popping the can open. He tilts it a bit and holds it to Ryoma's lips.

Ryoma searches Atobe for any sign of contempt or mirth or sardonic amusement. He finds nothing. Atobe blankly looks back at him. Ryoma opens his mouth and lets his favorite drink flow down his throat.

"Why are you here?" Atobe asks. Ryoma gets it. Why is he in his room?

"Because my arm is broken."

"You should be out at the courts."

Ryoma turns to look at Atobe with disbelief. Atobe goes on. "You can play with both arms. You're a southpaw. It's your right arm that's broken. What's stopping you?"

"I can't serve." Ryoma hasn't considered this before. All the team members who came by earlier just told him how much they miss him, blah blah. Nothing more than that, afraid to snap something inside the boy.

"No one's asking you to play an official match. Play with me. In my personal tennis courts. I'll serve every time. Just play."

"No." Ryoma angles his head for another sip, and Atobe raises his other hand and curls it around the nape of Ryoma's neck, twining in the soft hair that Ryoma has allowed to grow.

Ryoma stills. The hand is cold and warm, soft and firm. But it's foreign, and Ryoma has never let anyone touch him.

"Don't touch me."

The hand moves away. Ryoma misses it. Nothing can be done about it now.

"You're nothing to me but an arrogant bastard," Ryoma says. "Why are _you_ here?"

Atobe tells him the same thing he told Ryoma's father. "I respect your talent."

"Bullshit," Ryoma snarls. "Like hell you respect any damn thing in your life."

"I respect what I feel for you," Atobe says. All this time, through every change in Ryoma's mien, he has stayed calm. Nothing has changed.

"And what do you feel for me?"

"Affection." Atobe won't say love. He won't say it until he is sure of it being returned.

Ryoma shuts up. "Affection?" he murmurs.

"Come out and come to my home. Play tennis with me." Atobe stands up, drinking the rest of the can, ignoring Ryoma's protest.

Ryoma says nothing as Atobe leaves.

* * *

"I don't see how you could actually like me. You don't even know me."

"I like you because of your tennis. It tells me who you are, and so I don't need to talk to you to know the kind of person you are," Atobe says.

"And who am I?"

Ryoma is standing at the baseline, racket in hand. Atobe is beside him, standing far enough for Ryoma to not feel uncomfortable. He wishes he could just curl himself around the broken boy looking lost, but he keeps himself in check.

Atobe throws up the ball in his hand and quickly takes a couple of steps back. Ryoma leaps up and smashes it to the opponent's side of the court. His left arm, albeit weakened, hasn't lost much strength, compared to his limp right.

"Muscle memory," Atobe notes.

"I'm muscle memory?"

Atobe raises an eyebrow at the boy who smirks back at him and says, "Throw up another one."

Atobe gets close to the other boy again, this time closer than before, and mutters, "You're a cocky and rude pissant. That's what your tennis tells me."

Ryoma starts to laugh. Atobe laughs with him, and he can't blame himself for doing what he's doing.

* * *

It's one of those bad days. When nothing's working, not his arm, not his mood, just nothing. Ryoma bites the inside of his lip and struggles to play. He adjusts his cap.

Atobe looks at Ryoma across the court. He serves lightly, not too much force in order to not overexert Ryoma, and Ryoma, who gets it, snaps. "Don't you fucking pity me!" he screams at Atobe. "Don't you fucking go light on me!"

He just stands there as Ryoma falls to his knees and finally weeps for everything that he has lost. When the shaking stops after ten minutes, he mutely walks over to Ryoma and gets down on his knees, too. He hesitates a split second before grabbing him in a tight, tight embrace, paying heed to the broken arm before crushing Ryoma to him. Ryoma lets him.

He grabs Atobe's collar and clumsily looks up at him-it was an honest plea... for what, Atobe doesn't have words-before kissing him.

They kiss. Once. Twice. Again. Atobe's hands run all over Ryoma, knocking off the cap, settling in his hair, reaching for skin under a sweaty t-shirt. Ryoma's tongue licks at Atobe's lips and Ryoma bites them and loves them and stops breathing.

Atobe's cold hands bring goose bumps to Ryoma's skin. His cold hands map every inch of Ryoma's skin. His cold hands brush away every tear that remained on Ryoma's face. Ryoma gives himself to Atobe.

He finds out that Atobe's beautiful. The mole under his eye. The softness and shape of his lips. His eyes and his eyelashes and his hands and his love-it's all beautiful. He's a fucked up narcissistic son of a bitch as well, and that's beautiful too.

Ryoma kisses Atobe like he's drowning. Maybe he is. Atobe is his buoy. Keeps him above water, keeps him breathing, keeps him sane.

Atobe closes his mouth over Ryoma's lips one last time before pulling him up. They stand there, breathing deeply.

Ryoma looks up at Keigo, just a little bit more healed.

Keigo just caresses Ryoma's face, eyes closed. He thinks, _It's all over._

* * *

It's six months later that Ryoma's arm feels like it never broke.

Six months later that Ryoma finally feels gratitude for all he has for the first time in his life.

Back to normal. Winning tournaments with Seigaku left and right. Life's good. But-

Keigo's gone.

Ryoma only sees him at matches now. He doesn't know what happened-doesn't know when Atobe fit himself into his life, and when he left a gaping hole in it. Keigo doesn't even meet his eyes anymore. Just the same taunts and snarky comments that he made before Ryoma broke his arm. The same _Be awed by my glory_ and the same _Fuck you, I'm better than you._

What happened, only Keigo knows.

Ryoma tries to forget it. Every single kiss and touch and sigh and _I love you._

But he can't. He relives those memories over and over and over until they're all he can see when he closes his eyes.

The wound on his soul made by his broken arm and broken dreams got closed, but a new one's opened, and Atobe did both. Healed one scar, cut open another.

* * *

Atobe has his reasons. He needed a competitor. He fell in love with the one person who would best him at the sport he made his own, and that was a mistake.

He put him back together, just so they could play tennis again.

Fear is an all-consuming thing. He used to fear people getting better at him at the one thing he rules. Now he fears that if he stays around Ryoma, he'll soften the prodigy.

Ryoma plays better than ever. Switched completely to his left hand. Sarcastic grins and _Mada mada dane_ and all.

He avoids Atobe. Atobe avoids him.

What else are they, anyway? Just two players who love the sport and would do anything to heal the incapacitated other, going as far as to remove themselves out of the other's life.

Some things hurt. They open wounds in you and just hold on to every painful memory that you possess. They make you curl up and want to die and they empty you of everything. Nothing can remove that sort of pain from you.

Keigo has one of Ryoma's slings in his bedside drawer. He sometimes takes it out and looks at it before putting it back and wiping away a stray tear that falls. He desperately needs Ryoma but the fear won't go away.

Ryoma has one of Keigo's tennis rackets. He plays with it regularly, making sure to never upend it so that the K doesn't show.

Keigo ultimately chose to see in his life Ryoma the successful tennis player over Ryoma the broken lover, and Ryoma has to deal with it. Or maybe not.

* * *

The end.


End file.
